Too hot to candle

If scented candles are your passion, then Diptyque is your holy grail. This small shop in Paris has become a mecca for superstars, presidents and the fashion elite, who can think of few better reasons to strike a match.

Whenever Donatella Versace is in town, she buys up the store’s entire stock of Fig Tree candles – 100 at a time – to perfume her Ritz hotel suite with the Mediterranean scent she so loves.

Phat cat P. Diddy is no less devoted. He buys an equal amount of sexily scented Tuberose candles to get himself in the mood, whether at home or in his music studio.

Like her good friend Donatella, Madonna loves Diptyque’s Fig Tree, and so does fellow dance diva J. Lo.

Baies is another big celebrity favorite. Diptyque’s winning combination of black currant and Bulgarian rose has hooked the noses of Elizabeth Hurley and Sarah Jessica Parker, who even let art imitate life. In one episode of Sex and the City, Carrie Bradshaw lights Baies candles by her bed while waiting for a visit from Mr. Big.

Why all this fuss over scented candles, and why has this little pink shop on 34 Boulevard Saint Germain become the stuff of legend?

"If skincare is magic in a jar, Diptyque is a dream in a bottle," explains Jeffrey Santos, associate brand manager of cosmetics and toiletries for Rustan’s, which has brought Diptyque to the Philippines. "There is story behind the emotions in a bottle, and you have to relate that story."

Diptyque’s story began 45 years ago, in 1961. Three friends – painter Desmond Knox-Leet, architect Christiane Gautrot, and theater designer Yves Coueslant – met while studying fine art at the Ecole de Beaux Arts in Paris. Their first venture together was selling fabrics they’d designed, but their cotton prints failed to capture the snooty Parisian crowd. They then had the bright idea of creating candles to match their textiles’ vibrant hues, and the candlemaker they approached suggested scenting them. Voila: in 1963, a time when scented candles barely existed, much less were in vogue, Diptyque issued its first creations in Pine and Hawthorn. Knox-Leet, the "nose" of the trio, also drew by hand Diptyque’s distinctive black and white labels, which have since become the hallmark of the house.

"At first they only marketed it to friends who loved it, but friends of the friends saw it, and a demand was created," notes Santos. "Their success over 45 years was gradual – it became a cult that got bigger and bigger."

So big, in fact, that VIPs line up just to get a whiff. Diptyque lore has it that the late Francois Mitterrand, who was then President of France, dropped by the store one Saturday afternoon.

"Saturday is the busiest day at Diptyque in Paris," relates Santos. "Around 4 p.m., Mitterrand went there without a bodyguard, and caused a commotion. It’s such a small store, and he insisted on lining up; he refused to go first: ‘No, I will wait my turn.’"

Like their president, French families have made Diptyque a family tradition. "Sometimes we have three generations in the shop," Coueslant has said.

One reason the brand inspires such loyalty is that they remain unchanged throughout the years. They refuse to expand, keeping their original Paris location; use only the best, all-natural ingredients from Grasse, France – the perfume capital of the world – and they never discontinue a fragrance, even if it performs poorly.

"For them, as long as there is a person who’s buying it, they maintain it," Santos says. "They say, ‘What if this person comes to my store, how can I tell them I discontinued it because nobody was buying it? Their motto is ‘Give the best, sell the best, and don’t be market-led.’"

Fashion designers who share the same aesthetics, like Giorgio Armani, have used Diptyque candles to perfume their runway shows, while the notoriously finicky Karl Lagerfeld, who used to buy only Heliotrope and Cinnamon to scent his house, has started exploring the 51 other scents in the range now that he has homes all over the world.

"He has had an extraordinary impact on our sales," said Coueslant. "Beautiful women would come in and ask for the same candles just to be like him."

Michael Kors is a recent convert, as is John Galliano, a friend who created his own scent for the house. The resulting candle has a compelling mix of woods, smoke and leather that is currently one of Diptyque’s best-sellers.

"Although we are a Third World country, our tastes should be as sophisticated as theirs," Santos stresses. "Let us experience what it is in Diptyque that they find so beautiful."

As it is, scented candles have earned an iffy reputation in the Philippines. Any candle touched by a drop of scent is passed off as a "scented candle" and can be had for cheap at tiangges, so why pay more for the real thing? Ah, but we’re talking about completely different balls of wax here. Basically, you get what you pay for.

"Diptyque candles are created like perfumes," Santos says. "The essence level is similar to an eau de toilette. For a cheap candle, it’s just a drop or two. When you light it you can’t smell it anymore – it’s just coated. You store it for a while, and the scent evaporates. With Diptyque, the burning time is 60 hours, and up to the last spark of the wick, you can still smell it."

The newest products currently making waves in Paris – and now available in the Philippines – are Narcisse, a candle based on the Greek myth of Narcissus, who fell in love with his own reflection, drowned and turned into the flower that now bears his name. The resulting candle gets its deep, sensuous, yet sweet aroma from the bulb, stem and leaves of this small white flower.

Also popular is Sweet Pea, or Pois de Senteur. This healing flower from the South of Italy, long used by the French to fashion sophisticated flower arrangements for the home, is now a centerpiece scent that gives any room a final, flirty touch.

With the success of its scented candles, the next logical step for Diptyque was to create fragrances. Inspired by their travels and a love of history, the three friends based their first eau de toilette, L’Eau, a spicy blend of cinnamon, geranium, sandalwood, rose, and cloves, on a 16th-century recipe for potpourri. Two more scents soon followed: L’Autre, a very dry and sensual blend of Near Eastern spices; and L’Eau Trois, a resinous scent of aromatic shrubs from Northern Greece’s mountainous coastline.

In 1983 Diptyque struck gold once again with L’Ombre dans L’eau (Shadow in the Water), the perfume version of Baies with its heady mix of black currant and rose. Stars like Nicole Kidman and Kristin Scott Thomas proudly wore the blend, and now, in a unisex twist, dashing George Clooney has made it part of his fragrance wardrobe.

Now that the trend in perfumery is individuality, even in our country, Santos feels that Filipinos are ready for Diptyque, which encourages you to customize your own scent, mix candles and make your own statement. Whereas before Pinoys were open only to light florals, citrus and fruit fragrances, now they like experimenting and expressing their personalities through scent. Heck, sales of men’s fragrances have even shot up – not because more men have gone metrosexual – but because women are now wearing men’s perfumes.

"In a study last January, the Philippine fragrance industry is projected to grow at 10 percent," Santos says. "The bulk of the growth will be coming from premium brands. Mass brands have stabilized at 5-percent growth, but prestige brands are growing by 15 percent."

Rustan’s dream goal for Diptyque, as well as all its other niche brands, is to offer consultative services. Instead of merely offering you a scent strip to sniff, sales staff will sit down with you and discuss your likes and dislikes to find the scent that perfectly matches your personality. And while Diptyque is currently available at Rustan’s Grandmall, a store to the left of the MAC outlet in Rustan’s Makati, the ultimate vision is to have a row of scent boutiques – one boutique devoted to each brand – each preserving the décor, character, and feel of the original shops in Paris.

Perhaps then VIPs from all over Asia will fly in to the Philippines just to buy Diptyque candles and perfumes. Like Lauren Bacall, who flies to Paris just to get her candle fix (she loves Tuberose, Broom, Musk and Opoponax), even if it’s available in Hollywood. "I could have bought them at Barneys," she says, "but it’s just not the same."

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Diptyque is available at Rustan’s Grandmall, beside the MAC store in Rustan’s Makati.